Comparing Greenhouse Gases for Policy Purposes

Broader perspectives for comparing different greenhouse gases.

Over the last 20 years, different greenhouse gases have been compared, in the context of climate change, primarily through the concept of global warming potentials (GWPs). This considers the climate forcing caused by pulse emissions and integrated over a fixed time horizon. Recent studies have shown that uncertainties in GWP values are significantly larger than previously thought and, while pas...

Alternatives to stabilization scenarios

[1] Studies attempting to constrain climate sensitivity, or equilibrium surface warming in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, by comparing models with observations report a wide range of distributions, particularly regarding the upper bound. There is, by contrast, a considerable consensus surrounding the transient climate response, in large part because it is directly related...

Agricultural Mitigation of Greenhouse Gases: Science and Policy Options

ISSUE BRIEF 14 mANDATORy REGUlATION OF NONTRADITIONAl GREENHOUSE GASES: POlICy OPTIONS FOR INDUSTRIAl PROCESS EmISSIONS AND NON-CO2 GASES

Greenhouse Effect

Global warming from the increase in greenhouse gases has become a major scientific and political issue during the past decade. That infrared radiation is trapped by greenhouse gases and particles in a planetary atmosphere and that the atmospheric CO2 level has increased by some 25 percent since 1850 because of fossil fuel combustion and land use (largely deforestation) are not controversial; le...